A Criminal of Me
by Sunlight through Leaves
Summary: After the third victim was found in the Academy, suspicion landed squarely on the teachers, especially on the one with no alibi. Iruka didn't think that he could possibly be responsible, but he still can't remember where he was that night.


**Title:** A Criminal of Me

**Rating:** M

**Summary:** After the third victim was found in the Academy, suspicion landed squarely on the teachers, especially on the one with no alibi. Iruka didn't think that he could possibly be responsible, but he still can't remember where he was that night.

**Word Count:** 12,857

**AN:** Written for the lovely Caesaria for the 2012 Kakairu WinterFest. I really hope everyone enjoys this; it was both a wonderful challenge and a real treat to tackle. Title shamelessly lifted from The Tossers' song of the same name. Massive thanks to Kiterie for her help, encouragement, and extraordinary patience with me.

OOOOOOO

_The pencil skittered out of his hand, and the noise was loud enough to almost cover the labored breathing and murmuring that was filling the room. Iruka dove after it, stretching as far as he could without removing his other hand, and was just able to catch it under his fingertips._

_"Did you get that?"_

_"Yes. Yes." Iruka shoved the paper under his knee and scrawled it down one-handed, careful to stay within the seal border. "Just keep talking." _Please keep talking._ He leaned harder on Kakashi's leg._

_The murmurs started up again, faltered, and evened out. Kakashi's chest continued to rise and fall in haphazard breaths, and Iruka kept track of it out of the corner of his eye._

_After several long moments, Kakashi fell silent again._

_"Hey." Iruka dropped the pencil and jostled him. "Hey, keep talking."_

_"That's it," Kakashi said, dropping his head back to the floor and taking several deep breaths. "Nothing more to say. I just need a moment to rest." His hand snapped out to catch Iruka's wrist, as if he thought Iruka was going to flee. He held out a hand for the piece of paper Iruka had been madly scribbling on and folded it in half. The seals glowed bright and faded, and Kakashi pushed it carefully into a front compartment of his vest._

_The tight grip on his wrist sparked a dull ache of pain that he couldn't quite keep from his face, and Iruka twisted his hand slightly to try to ease the grasp._

_Kakashi peered up at him and then down at stark bandages crinkling under his fingers before letting go. "Are you okay?"_

_"I'm fine." He freed his wrist carefully. "Just had a bit of a run-in with a poorly controlled jutsu. Happens more often than you'd think."_

_"Maa, did they assign you all the hooligans again?"_

_"Something like that." The wadded up cloth under his hand was almost completely soaked through. Iruka took the moment to pull it away and check the gash running from hip to mid-thigh along the front of Kakashi's leg. He recognized the tightening of muscles that preceded movement just in time to plant his hand on Kakashi's knee and hold it firmly in place. "Try _not_ to move around. It just stopped bleeding. I'm going to be incredibly irritated if you start wiggling and I have to spend another hour here holding you together."_

_"Maa, are you saying you don't enjoy my company?" Kakashi grinned up at him._

_Even though he was bent double dabbing an antiseptic salve into the wound and there was no way Kakashi could see him, Iruka struggled to fight down the blush that was threatening to creep across his cheekbones. He cast around for something to say, but Kakashi beat him to it._

_"Although, I suppose it might be a bit better if we could spend our time together once when I'm not bleeding all over the floor."_

_Once? What was _that_ supposed to mean?_

OOOOOOOOOOO

_What was the world coming to?_ Masato stepped over the boundary script hastily scrawled over the floor to keep out prying eyes and glanced back briefly at the children milling in the yard before shouldering the door open and slipping inside. His students – older than the knee-biters outside but not appreciably more mature – gathered against the wall adjacent to the door. He noted with some satisfaction that, to a man, their eyes were sharply focused on the center of the room. He had to hope that they were actually observing and forming conclusions, not simply staring in morbid fascination.

There was certainly enough morbid to go around. He approached slowly, waving one hand behind him to keep his group in place. Even though they weren't so green as to simply tread on something important, he liked to get the first look. Not that he was exactly chomping at the bit to get a good look at this particular body. Close up, the skin looked even more like poorly ground meat than it had from the door, and he shallowed his breath, leaning around the mess to study the immediately adjacent floor. No trace, but it would be hard to sort out anything new from the general patina of life that filled the whole building. What was interesting, however, was the lack of any footprints, trails, or any sign of cleaning, as if the man had been killed and dumped directly on the spot.

He straightened and paced around. No matter what angle he viewed the body from, he couldn't pick out any pattern. Even though the man's death must have been grisly, it all just seemed to be a murder of convenience. He sighed. The perpetrator would have been much easier to catch with any sort of motive.

"I need a list of everyone who has access to the Academy after hours." The request was met with several barely muffled snickers. In a ninja village, _everyone_ had access to just about everything. "Let's just start with those who had access legally."

One of the shinobi gathered in a half circle behind him coughed, muttered, "Yes, sir," and turned on heel, casting a briefly chagrined glance at her fellow trainees scattered about the room as she went.

Masato beckoned the remaining trainees forward. Most were interested in serving in the investigations branch of the Torture and Interrogation group, and even though they were a village of warriors conditioned to kill, crimes tended towards theft, vandalism, and, in particularly bad straits, assault. Murder was rare. It would do them good to see a victim so early in their careers.

OOOOOOOOOOO

"I'm just saying that it's weird. They haven't released the name, but none of the Academy faculty are missing, right?" Anko paused barely long enough for Iruka to nod his head. "So why leave the body _here_?"

Iruka picked his way carefully over the clutter. "To create panic? The rest of the village - at least the shinobi side of it – are used to seeing dead bodies. Maybe they hoped the kids would discover it." He suppressed a shudder at the thought. Thankfully one of the new instructors had arrived obscenely early to prepare her class, and had cordoned off the area before any of them arrived.

Interrogations had questioned the kids briefly – they didn't remember seeing anyone strange around the Academy when they'd arrived and didn't remember seeing anyone lurking around during the previous day – and sent them home, but they'd hung on to the instructors and were slowly and methodically questioning their way through the whole group.

Since they'd been asked to stay close, Iruka was currently raiding one of the less-organized storage rooms for supplies. It was an exercise he'd been meaning to implement for months, but between dual shifts at the Academy and the mission desk, he hadn't been able to implement it.

Now that he was here, he remembered why he'd backed off on it before. The storage room was an unmitigated mess – he really couldn't blame Anko for hovering just outside the door and refusing to put one toe over the threshold. He stepped carefully over a rack of assorted weapons and edged his way between two tall racks of scrolls, books, and equipment to where they dead-ended against the wall. He ran his fingers over a couple of prospective items, picked them up, and peered at the labels before putting them back.

"Do you have _any_ idea where you're going?" Anko called from the door.

"The inventory sheet says they should be back here."

"The inventory sheet?" Even though Iruka had moved it just a second ago, a thick cloud of dust cascaded over Anko's hands with even the slightest movement. She flipped a couple of pages, coughed, and hooked it back up on the wall. "Any idea the last time that was updated?"

"Probably back when I was still a student." He crouched down to peer along the lowest shelf. Maybe they were wedged on top of the box of poison recipe cards – those really needed to be stored in a more secure location and better labeled. He picked up a long tube and read the label. _Damn._ He'd already looked at that one. "Not that bodies and inventory lists aren't fascinating, but I really need to find the practice summoning scrolls, and I've picked up and put down the same thing three times since I got over here. What are you doing here?"

Anko raised an eyebrow and dropped a significant gaze to his exposed right arm. "We're taking bets as to how many of your kids are going to barf today, and I figured some inside information on just how gruesome it is wouldn't hurt."

"None of my kids are going to barf today." Not unless he happened to randomly run in to them on the way home. Iruka tugged his sleeve down self-consciously. He'd just taken the bandages off that morning and wasn't used to having the bandages off his arm, and the raw skin he'd earned from getting too close to a student's barely-learned steam jutsu was downright disgusting. Unfortunately, it needed a chance to breathe in order to heal properly, his sleeve made it itch like mad, and not to mention that it took up the majority of his right forearm, so his class would have to look at it continuously while he was writing on the board. He had to admit that Anko had a fair point, he'd definitely expected at least one to be looking a little green around the gills by the end of the day.

"I know. Genma's going to be insufferable for taking my money again."

"Are you saying that he's not insufferable on a regular basis?" The low drawl clearly did not belong to Anko and was instantly recognizable.

Anko snorted, "Good point. What are you doing here?"

"Supplies. Good morning, Iruka-sensei."

"Good morning, Kakashi-sensei." Iruka yanked the practicing scrolls out from under a badly singed set of the same scrolls. He hoped his students were slightly more successful. "Give me a second, and I'll be out of your way." The aisles were barely wide enough for one person let alone wide enough to squeeze in two without a few obscene violations of personal space.

"It's fine. I can reach what I need." Without waiting for Iruka to escape, Kakashi slid between the racks, pinning Iruka against the end of the aisle.

Despite the hard edge of one of the shelves digging a permanent mark into his spine, Iruka crowded back to try to give Kakashi as much space as he could, but the materials Kakashi needed were on a shelf just over his head. Honestly, was there _nowhere_ else he could have found them? A brief thought of trying to sidestep around Kakashi was quickly discarded. Iruka would have to be pressed flush against his side, and even then, he might not actually make it. Being stuck, even for the briefest moment, between Kakashi and the shelves was one of those stories that he would never live down.

No amount of movement could provide any modicum of reasonable space between them, especially when Kakashi's hand closed around the metal upright of the shelving unit by Iruka's neck for balance. The gesture put Kakashi close enough to him that a vaguely woody scent that all shinobi seemed to carry on them mixed with the unmistakable scent of parchment, paper, and canines filled the small space. Iruka fought to ignore both the stifling proximity and the blush threatening to burn it's way across his face. If he tried to lower his head to hide it, however, he would have buried his face in Kakashi's shoulder and would have rather negated any subterfuge.

Items rattled on the shelf above, but they clearly weren't what Kakashi was looking for, because he attempted to rework the laws of physics in order to step closer before fumbling blindly on the shelf again.

Iruka considered pointing out that two objects actually couldn't occupy the same space at the same time and that they'd all be better off if Kakashi would just back out to the entrance so that Iruka could get out of the way, but when he turned his head to offer that suggestion, his nose almost brushed up against Kakashi's cheek.

Kakashi hadn't bothered to look up – he wouldn't have been able to see anything anyway – choosing instead to stare at some lumpy bundle of items in the shadows of the shelves. When he spoke, his voice came scarce inches from Iruka's ear. "Glad to see your arm is doing better."

"Arm?" No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't seem to get his brain cells to cooperate. "Oh, my arm. Yes, it's healing."

He pulled an oblong box containing assorted concealing bombs from the shelf and stepped back. "Good."

With a bit more space between them, Iruka sucked in a breath and willed his heart to slow it's manic pace. He was intensely glad that Kakashi seemed to be too busy picking his way over the cluttered floor to notice.

Kakashi waved over his shoulder on his way out.

"You are _scarlet_," Anko snorted.

Well so much for no one noticing his embarrassing reaction. He glowered at Anko before memory of the brief conversation shoved his initial discomfort aside. "How did he know about my arm? The only people who knew were the class, the medical nin, and you."

"And all the people I told," Anko added. "Why do you think we're taking bets?"

Which only meant that the entire shinobi corps thought that he'd been unable to defend himself against a pre-genin jutsu, because no one save Anko would bother with retelling that his chakra had been put to better use protecting the rest of the class. It had been all he could do to lower the temperature of the majority of the steam to unpleasantly, as opposed to dangerously, hot water.

Anko at least had the decency to look contrite. "Sorry," she offered. "There may have been alcohol involved, and we got on the subject of 'wrong place, wrong time' stories. You have to admit, you have an awful lot of those."

Iruka groaned a protest, trying hard not to think about all the other ones she probably told.

"At least you're always saving people when you get into these situations. Sadao, one of the new examinations tokujou, was taking a stroll along the roofs yesterday and got an eyeful of a couple going at it in the next building over. Apparently, it was quite a show, because he stepped into a gutter and broke his ankle. Managed to get one of his buddies to say that he broke it sparring."

That made for a better story if nothing else. He bent to re-shelve a couple of items that had probably been sitting on the floor for decades and it did little to ameliorate the mess, but it would give him a clearer path when he came back. When he straightened again, he looked at Anko. "Did he really…?"

"Honest truth. You should have seen the look on his face when the Hokage asked him why he'd been taken off the active list." The end of her sentence trailed off. She was staring out the door and down the hall.

"I'm looking for Umino Iruka." The owner of the voice was still just outside the room, but his voice carried easily.

Iruka leapt over the last obstacle blocking the corridor and slid to a stop in the doorway. "I'm here."

Given the uniform, the man was from Interrogations. He sized Iruka up – either confirming his identity or trying to figure out the best way take him down if he chose to run. "We need to see you upstairs."

OOOOOOOOOOO

"Please state your name for the record." The folder open in front of him had the name 'Umino Iruka – Chunnin - Academy Instructor' bolded across the top. This would be the tenth instructor they'd questioned so far, and he didn't really expect to have a break-through here.

Iruka slid forward, unnecessarily leaning into the microphone. "Umino Iruka."

"Where were you between the hours of midnight and 3 am on October 24th?" He tilted his head to one side, eyes fixed firmly on Iruka's face, looking for any of the telltale signs of prevarication – loss of gaze, a flinch, anything, but the reaction took him completely by surprise.

Iruka opened his mouth "I…" He stopped sharply and blinked. "I don't know."

There were no signs of lying. Masato studied him closer. Memory gaps were strange and could indicate all sorts of things. "You don't know?"

"I can't remember." Iruka shook his head as if to clear it. "_Why_ can't I remember?"

"Give me your hand." A senbon needle slipped easily out of his sleeve holster and into his hand, and Masato deftly lanced the tip of Iruka's finger. He channeled pulses of chakra into the button of blood that oozed out, but nothing reacted.

"I wasn't drugged." Iruka had been fixed on his expression, clearly watching for a reaction.

_Interesting_. He hadn't expected Iruka to pick up on what was going on, but it really shouldn't have surprised him. The technique was common enough, and the instructors typically knew factoids about the wide range of available jutsu. "It doesn't appear so. Where were you supposed to be?"

"I was scheduled for the mission desk. I remember reporting in, and then," he spread his hands, "I woke up at home. I think I must have noticed that there was a gap, but I've been pulling double shifts, and I just chalked it up to being overworked and overtired."

Overworked was certainly a reasonable explanation. "Is there anyone who can vouch for you?"

Iruka looked thoughtful for a moment and then slowly shook his head. "We didn't have any assignments to give out and no one was due back in."

Masato scribbled the comments down in almost illegible shorthand. The only people who had arrived home on that date had signed in around dawn - he'd checked that first since a mission-traumatized shinobi could easily have been responsible. "What about," he checked his notes, "The fifteenth and the eighteenth?

The color draining from Iruka's face like someone had pulled a plug at the bottom of his stomach was all the answer he needed.

OOOOOOOOOOO

"Hey, they said you'd be late. How'd the questioning go?" Izumo pulled his legs in to sit up straighter behind the desk. "Are you alright?"

Iruka dumped his bag onto the table and tossed the scrolls after it. He'd planned to drop them off in his classroom, but the interrogation had gone later than expected, and when he'd finally been excused, he'd stumbled into the bathroom. No amount of cold water splashed on his face could calm the panic eating its way up his spine. Three dates; three chunks of time missing from his mind. The evidence all pointed to a conclusion that he couldn't even begin to consider.

He realized belatedly that Izumo was still staring at him. "Fine. I'm fine." He managed a reassuring half smile. "You know those T&I guys; they like to make an impression.

"That's one way to put it." He stood and stretched. "It's been pretty quiet so far, so here's hoping it stays that way for you."

"Thanks, Izumo." Iruka resisted the urge to shoo him out. He knew from the schedule that Izumo had been working since before 4 that morning. The last thing he needed was to start his shift with Izumo snoring away on the table next to him.

Not that having the room all to himself was exactly what he needed at this moment. He'd be better off at home dealing with this revelation, but the village was short-handed ever since Orochimaru's attack, and he'd volunteered to work the mission desk regularly along with his normal teaching job to help distribute the load. He pushed the assignment scrolls to one side – shinobi would trickle in throughout the night to collect their missions. None were crucial, and in most cases the shinobi assigned had only just arrived home. After the required rest period, they'd pick up, pack up, and ship out. Unfortunately, that meant that for the time being, Iruka was stranded alone with his riotous thoughts.

Maybe if he tried hard enough he'd be able to glean something. He rested his head in his hands and closed his eyes. After several deep, centering breaths, he shoved at the areas of missing memory, prying at the mental wall keeping him from what he should be able to remember.

When the wall didn't so much shove back as it just simply existed and refused to let him in, he squeezed his eyes shut and tried harder. All he got for his troubles was an almost instantaneous splitting headache. He aimed the butt-end of a kunai at the light switch – the pain induced from the noise was well worth the ability to turn off the lights without getting up. It was going to be a long night.

Bright jabs of pain skittered around the inside of his skull that no amount of massaging his temples would assuage. He gently tugged the hitai-ate off and his hair tie out in a rather desperate attempt to lessen the pressure. Digging his fingers into his scalp didn't particularly help the headache, but it felt better than nothing at all. He curled in on himself and groaned.

"Now, now, Iruka-sensei, you realize that you're sitting alone in the dark, groaning? People will get ideas."

He jerked his head up and winced at the action, "It's too much to hope that you haven't gotten any ideas, isn't it?"

"Not when you look so thoroughly debauched." Kakashi leaned over the table to catch a strand of loose hair between his fingers as if he was trying to reinforce the point.

Hell, he'd been dragging his fingers through his hair. "Can I do something for you?"

One of Kakashi's eyebrows started an epic trek up the visible expanse of his forehead. "I don't know. Something is a very broad category, isn't it, _sensei_?"

Iruka huffed, embarrassed, sat back far enough to tug the lock out of Kakashi's grasp, and carded his hair back up into a reasonably professional ponytail. "Something _mission related_?"

"You're no fun."

"I beg to differ. I'm loads of fun; you've just never had the opportunity to find out." Later, he would blame the headache that was still ricocheting its way around his brain, but in that moment, all he could do was stand on the sidelines and watch his mouth run away with the conversation. Well, that and turn six shades of red and immediately busy himself with the stack of mission scrolls, looking for any marked with Kakashi's name. Even with his attention focused forcefully on the paperwork, he didn't miss the fact that, after a moment of what he could only assume was stunned silence, Kakashi started chuckling quietly.

For a long time, he'd simply known of Kakashi – everyone did – and Iruka'd only formally met him once he became Naruto's teacher. A vaguely fascinated impression had turned into something that Iruka both refused to call a crush, if only because it made him sound like a teenaged girl, and blamed wholly on Naruto and the fact that he refused to stop talking about Kakashi. Although the contents of those conversations were less than flattering, Iruka had enough experience to filter Naruto's exaggeration and pull out the kernels of truth, and despite their rather rocky introduction, he'd surprisingly grown to appreciate the personality revealed by Kakashi's rather unorthodox teaching methods.

All in all, being laughed at wasn't the reaction he was hoping for. He buried his face in the mission scrolls, searching for the one branded with Kakashi's name.

"Is there a reason we're sitting around in the dark?"

_Saved._ Iruka spotted the scroll and tugged it out from under the pile, balancing the rest carefully with one hand. "Evening, Asuma-san. We're just…"

"Nevermind. I'm not sure I want to know," he cut Iruka off, flipped the light on, and nodded to Iruka and Kakashi. "I hear there's a scroll in there with my name on it."

"Yes, just a second." Iruka scratched his initials into the assignment ledger.

"Going back out again?" Asuma stepped around Kakashi and peered at the mission scroll. "You feeling better already?"

Iruka yanked the scroll back and pierced Kakashi with what he could only hope was an authoritative glare. "You were injured?" Something flashed too quickly through Kakashi's eyes to be identified. If pressed, Iruka might have identified it as sadness, but it was hard to tell. Maybe it was nothing more complicated than guilt - the injury was recent enough that Asuma was still asking about it, and there were regulations on the length of downtime between an injury and the next mission, particularly an S-rank one.

"Top of my thigh, but it's fine now." Kakashi suddenly smirked and hitched up the bottom of his vest, hooking a thumb over the waistband of his trousers. "Do you need to check?"

"Let's try _not_ to add to your generally scandalous aura."

"Suit yourself. The offer's there."

He tried to keep his eyes to himself, he really did, but Kakashi was adjusting his vest so that it would hang properly, and all of that motion drew his gaze. He realized he was staring just a second too late and jerked his eyes back up to Kakashi's face in time to see the leer slide sideways off his face to be replaced by an expression that was quickly approaching surprise. Iruka coughed. "Just try to be careful."

"Always."

Something loosened behind his breastbone, and Iruka shook off the strange sensation of not even realizing he'd been worried about something until his fears were allayed.

OOOOOOOOOOO

Shit shit shit shit shit. _A steady chant of cursing echoed around the inside of Iruka's skull. The reaction was probably less than acceptable for a professional shinobi, but he'd never dealt with anything quite as bad as this before and reining all of his terror into his head kept his hands steady as he worked deftly to rearrange Kakashi into a better position where he could treat the wounds._

_The mantra faded under the knowledge that he was doing something to help, and Iruka realized that the sound filling the room hadn't only been coming from his obnoxiously loud thoughts – Kakashi was talking. The words were jumbled, incoherent, but pushed out with a desperate intensity._

_He was putting all of his remaining energy into forming words that Iruka couldn't even make out._

_"Stop." When that command didn't work, Iruka elaborated, "Stop talking. Right now, you need to concentrate on staying alive."_

_Kakashi grabbed the front of Iruka's vest and dragged himself half up on his elbows, blatantly ignoring both Iruka's hiss of displeasure and the shift of the ruined skin across his stomach. "_Listen_," he growled, "You have to remember this and tell the Hokage."_

_"Alright." Iruka wrestled him flat. "Alright, I'll listen, but only if you _don't move_."_

_Kakashi drew a shuddering breath that thankfully didn't expel any air bubbles out of the myriad of cuts along his chest. None were particularly deep, so the probability of a punctured lung was low, but the absence of the symptoms was reassuring. "It's a deal."_

_A slightly hysterical laugh bubbled from his chest. Kakashi's movements didn't appear to have aggravated his injuries, but that wasn't saying much. His vest was matted across his torso, and Iruka hadn't dared peel it away. If the cuts were deep enough to pierce his abdomen, leaving it in place would help hold him together until the medic nin arrived. He did his best to clean out the shallower cuts and scrapes, carefully keeping his hands away from the worst of it – all his poking and prodding there would only cause more pain – and listened carefully. He sorted out the muttered words as best he could, repeating the phrases over and over between the long, drawn-out pauses._

_The sentences grew shorter, and the pauses grew longer. Iruka was keenly aware of the amount of blood Kakashi was losing. "Kakashi-sensei?"_

_Spurred on by his question, Kakashi started talking again. "…mist…camp….five miles from the bend…"_

_"Not exactly important right now." He thought he saw Kakashi's eye flash at him. "Don't glare at me; I'm trying to save your life." Every weapons kit was stocked with anti-hemorrhagic drugs – one a powder that would solidify blood across the entire wound, effectively sealing it off, that was only ever used on extremities because the reaction was so caustic that the affected flesh had to be cut away later and two, a mild salve that slowed bleeding - and he fished out the smaller tin, holding it with one hand and cutting away the soaked vest material with the other. He smeared it over the raw edges of the wounds, careful to stay towards the surface. It would help control the blood loss but couldn't stop it completely. His basic supply wouldn't last long, but it was standard issue and required equipment. With any luck, Kakashi would be carrying some as well._

_Kakashi's weapons pouch was trapped mostly under his body, and rolling him to one side wasn't an option. He dug his hand under Kakashi's side and fished around for the familiar tin. "Come on. Come on."_

_A faint chuckle broke up the labored breathing. "Molesting a severely injured man, Iruka-sensei? I didn't think you had it in you."_

_The words were barely audible and slow, and the sentences dragged out. By the time Kakashi had finished, Iruka'd managed to locate the salve and pulled it free. He'd barely been listening, but the meaning sunk in eventually, and he almost snapped back with a retort pointing out that it seemed like the perfect time. After all, if someone was gravely injured, you might never get another chance._

_That thought brought him up short, and his mind churned on the implications while he tried to staunch the worst of the bleeding. If this was _it_, and given the sheer amount of blood on Kakashi, his hands, and the floor, that might be a decided possibility, should he let it go as it was? _Could_ he let it go as it was?_

_He might never get another chance._

_The tin was empty, and there was nothing to do until the medics arrived. The information that Kakashi was so desperate to share was still coming out in fits and starts, but he seemed to be having trouble keeping the thread as the thoughts started coming out as jumbled as the words._

_Iruka straightened Kakashi's arms out, trying to make him comfortable. He planted one hand on the floor next to Kakashi's head in order to lean over him. The single eye caught his gaze and held it, confused and questioning, and he almost chickened out, but it all came down to that one, all-important realization._

_What if he never had another chance?_

_It wasn't until he was already leaning down, mind committed to the motion, that he noticed that Kakashi had lifted an arm to reach for the chakra node just above his collarbone._

OOOOOOOOOOO

Mixed scents of bark, dead leaves, and underbrush hung rife in the air, adding to the feeling of wrongness crawling up his spine. Iruka scrabbled for purchase in the wet leaves and managed to push himself upright. The front of his uniform was soaked in dark intermittent patches with what he could only assume was early morning dew. He wiped away the thin film that hadn't yet soaked in, swiped his hands over his pants, and took stock of his surroundings.

Training ground, no doubt, but they all looked pretty much the same once you got past the chain link fence. What on Earth was he doing in one of the training grounds? He would have left the mission desk and headed straight home, and his preferred path did take him directly past the edge of training ground 5**, **so that at least narrowed down his probable location.

But what had drawn him inside? He closed his eyes, trying to dredge up the elusive memory. Perhaps he'd been attacked. That might explain the tentative connection his brain seemed to have to last night. Every time he tried to focus his mind on last night, his thoughts skittered away, but not frantically, like he would expect them to do if the tucked away memories were being repressed, but as if his mind just found something more interesting to think about whenever he probed them.

The sensation was relatively new, but not completely novel. When Interrogations had questioned him, Iruka had found the same deflection lurking in the depths of his mind on the nights of the 15th, 18th, and 24th. Someone had died on that most recent date – killed in the center of the foyer of the Academy – and if Interrogations had been asking about the other two, Iruka could only assume similar events.

His hands were still slick from mopping off his uniform, and he scrubbed them across his uniform pants again before checking his palms. Even in the low light, he could make out deep red stains along the creases. _Blood._ He tugged his vest out away from his body, finally recognizing the metallic bite in the air, and touched a finger to one of the larger dark blotches. It came away sticky and coated in wet blood.

Nothing hurt, and he was fairly certain that he wasn't going into shock, but he checked himself carefully for injuries nonetheless. He found nothing, so the blood wasn't his. He stumbled back, staring at the leaves he'd been face down in. A speckled pattern of blood marred the leaves on the ground and a few splotches clung to low branches, but apart from overturned leaves and scuffs in the dirt that were no doubt left from his arrival, there was no obvious source of the blood.

One step back to get a better view of the blood he'd tracked through the undergrowth, and his heel caught on solid bulk on the ground directly behind him. Iruka twisted around in the dank leaves, trying unsuccessfully to recover his balance, and dropped heavily to one knee.

The fall brought him face-to-face with the object he'd tripped over, and his heart slammed in his chest. Bile rose up the back of his throat, but a couple of convulsive swallows held it down. He shifted his balance to lean over the ruin of the body's face even though there was little point in checking for a pulse – no one could have survived this kind of trauma.

He jerked his head up, scanning the surrounding area for any evidence of another person, _anyone_ who wasn't him or the victim. The trees behind him presumably led to the boundary of the training ground given the footprints he'd left in the dirt, but he'd been facing them with the body behind him when he'd woken up, half-sprawled out of a small clearing in the looming forest. Had he tried to get help only to be attacked from behind? He raised a hand to the back of his head but found no obvious bumps or bruises that would explain why he hadn't raised an alarm about the body and why he was suffering from memory loss. Could the perpetrator's have left a different wound? Iruka dragged his gaze back to the body and felt the arm he was leaning on begin to tremble. The trauma was all-too-familiar.

His brain helpfully supplied a warm memory of begging his mother to teach him the ice trick, of sitting in her lap and watching with rapt attention as she flew through a series of seals, prodded a finger at the edge of a glass, and pulled her hand away after spears of ice grew across the surface and into a little rosette sticking into the liquid, and of carefully memorizing the seals so that he could try it himself.

The jutsu had, predictably, backfired. The chakra he'd expended to remove heat from the water had also sucked heat out of the outer skin of his thumb. The water in the cells had frozen almost instantly and expanded, turning the skin on the very tip of his thumb into a ruined pulp.

His mother had been furious. She'd also made him stare at the trashed skin even though it had turned his stomach. This was on a much larger scale, but he would recognize it anywhere.

Nausea rolled through the pit of his stomach. Was it possible that the blackouts were associated with the amount of chakra needed to execute the jutsu on this scale? But he'd never been able to perform it on any level higher than party trick before.

A flash of white under the gore drew his attention down away from the victim's head, and he realized that he could just make out white armor.

ANBU.

He'd taken down an _ANBU_, and he couldn't even remember doing it, let alone how he'd managed it.

He swallowed a wave of panic. _They'll never believe me_, he realized. _They'll never believe that I could have done it. They won't….They won't lock me up._

Four people had died, and he had no idea if he could even exert any control over the fate of another. If he stayed, he'd only be putting the village and its inhabitants in danger.

He ran.

OOOOOOOOOOO

Two taps at the door were all the warning he was willing to give them. The information was too urgent to even waste seconds. He threw the door open, ignored the second person standing in front of Tsunade's desk, and set the mission request scroll directly in front of her. "Hokage-sama, I am requesting retrieval of a missing-nin for suspicion in the four open murder cases."

"Four?"

Masato turned towards the voice, easily recognizing Kakashi. "Yes. We found a fourth body this morning and went to question our prime suspect, only to discover that he has fled the village."

Masato could read the curiousness in Tsunade's face. The investigation had progressed so quickly, only two days between the discovery of the body at the Academy and the discovery of the fourth, that they hadn't had time to report their findings up the chain of command. Though he had left a message for her regarding the new death, the identity of their primary suspect was still the sole knowledge of his team.

"Who?"

"Umino Iruka."

Kakashi straightened minutely, "Hokage-sama, he couldn't…"

"I know," Tsunade cut him off. "Are you sure he's missing?"

In answer, Masato held out the carefully folded hitai-ate they'd found on the floor just inside the door of Iruka's apartment. The message had been clear.

Tsunade cursed under her breath.

"He has an _alibi_?" Masato raised an eyebrow at the two. "_He_ can't even remember where he was."

"He was with me."

"With you?"

"Yes."

"And this is caused by, what, an amnesiac drug so he can't remember what you did to him?" He braced himself the minute he saw Kakashi bristle at the insinuation.

Tsundae sighed and broke in before the situation escalated. "That's enough. Masato-san, we can't tell you the exact details, but I assure you that the memory loss is for Iruka's protection, not so that we can harm him."

The explanation was less than satisfactory, but given Kakashi's long history of high-rank missions, the lack of any specifics was unsurprising. Even though Masato held a high enough clearance to theoretically access the necessary information, the paperwork required would be astronomical. If he'd even suspected Iruka of being attached to anything requiring clearance, he would have already approached Tsunade about it. He gritted his teeth – after two days of work, they were back to square one, and they'd managed to make an innocent member of the village desert simply by pointing out circumstantial evidence

A soft whump of displaced air drew Masato's attention down to the floor. A wirey brown and white dog glanced up at him and stepped around his legs to stare up at Kakashi. "He's not here, boss. I followed his trail all the way to the gate."

"Are you sure it led to the gate?" After seeing the dog's nod of confirmation, Kakashi was at the window with one leg thrown over the sill. "Hokage-sama, he's not in the village."

"Go."

OOOOOOOOOOO

With the sun down, the temperature plummeted. Iruka settled for a location deep in the woods far enough from the main path towards the Land of Earth to escape notice. The mountains would afford him a modicum of isolation. Perhaps if he could avoid humanity, he'd be able to prevent another senseless death.

He pasted the final tag for a sentry circle low on a tree trunk. With the circle completed, a sudden spike in his chakra would warn him of the entrance of any living creature. It was one of Iruka's favorite alarms - incredibly disconcerting and impossible to ignore – and would give him a chance to run before anyone got close.

One of the trees within his circle had a pair of wide forked branches that looked like they would support his weight, and Iruka leapt onto them, settling against the trunk and huddling down into his vest. The wind was brutal higher up, but he couldn't afford to be spotted. Who knew what would happen if a civilian ran across him, or worse, if ANBU had been dispatched to retrieve him and didn't bother to take the necessary precautions because he was a simple chuunin.

To fend off the cold, he rolled into a tight ball and dropped his forehead to his knee. Bone clunked against unprotected bone and he winced. He'd forgotten that he'd left his hitai-ate behind. It was a part of the uniform, and he'd worn it for so long that it was more an extension of himself than just an article of clothing. He pressed a hand against the bare skin, wondering how long it would take him to get used to the absence. That life was well and truly behind him now.

In the long run, there was a possibility of him adjusting to the missing hitai-ate. He knew he would never adjust to the missing community. He shoved the realization of what he'd truly lost as far back in his mind as he could. This was for them; this was to keep them _safe_. For that reason alone, he could weather anything.

Even with the cold, the fear, and the adrenaline, he was still exhausted, and that thought was chasing him down towards sleep when he heard it.

Howling.

Iruka's head shot up so fast he nearly cracked the back of his skull on the trunk behind him. For a moment it was silent save for the wind and his own ragged breathing – he clamped a hand over his mouth to stifle it so that he could hear better – and then an answering howl broke out from the north.

He thumbed the catch on his weapon's pouch, drawing a kunai into his hand. If they were wild, he'd be safe in the branches; if they weren't, his location wouldn't matter. A tingling zap shot through his body – the wards had been triggered – and he gripped the kunai tighter, shifting into a fighting stance on the larger of the two branches with it held at the ready in front of him.

A shadowy bulk strode slowly between the trees, shaking off the unpleasant sensation of breaking the circle of protective tags. Iruka squinted in the darkness. The moonlight dappled by the overhanging canopy of branches broke up the shape and made it almost unidentifiable until it stepped out into the clearing.

Iruka swallowed a gasp and resisted the urge to lower his blade. He had left the village to protect the people around him, and he was certainly not going to start off his self-imposed banishment by hurting Kakashi's dogs, but if his dogs were here, Kakashi couldn't be far behind. He wondered if he could make them believe in his empty threats enough to leave him alone.

In his peripheral vision, he could make out at least two others slowly flanking him. He was certain the rest of the pack was filling in the approaches that he couldn't see without taking his eyes off of the tan ninken in front of him. He dropped to the ground, drawing himself up to his full height. "Back off," he warned with all the authority he could muster.

A sound started low in the chest of the ninken in front of him at the sight of the weapon, a deep growl that morphed into words. "We were told to find you and keep you."

He extended the kunai point first towards the ninken. "I won't tell you again. Back off." He could barely hear the growls building on all sides of him over the impossibly loud pounding of his heart. He would never hurt Kakashi's ninken, and he had no idea what he would do if they called his bluff.

He had no idea what _might_ happen if they called his bluff. Panic that he was going to blink and open his eyes to the morning sun surrounded by frozen, destroyed ninken welled up inside him. He tightened his grip on the blade. He _had_ to make them leave.

"You're not going to hurt them." Kakashi melted out of the forest behind the ninken, moving silently over the dead leaves and underbrush to stand at the tan ninken's shoulder. One hand smoothed over the raised hackles. "You're certainly not going to hurt me."

It should have been reassuring – it certainly was for the ninken because the growls fell off almost instantaneously - but it was exactly what Iruka had feared. He leveled the blade at Kakashi, though he knew full well that it wouldn't do any good. "You have no idea what I can do. The way that man died, I…"

In a flash, Kakashi was in front of him and had a tight enough grip on his weapon hand that the kunai fell from Iruka's nerveless fingers. The other found a handhold in the front of his vest and shoved him up against the tree behind him. "It wasn't you."

"You can't be sure about that!" Iruka snapped. From this position, he could barely move, but his empty hand was shaking, and the only thought rattling through his brain was an endless repetition of '_leave_.' "I _know_ that jutsu, and I woke up beside him. I was there at the scene of the crime."

"You…" Kakashi broke off with a completely misplaced chuckle, freed a hand, and dragged his hand over his face. "Why are you always in the wrong place at the wrong time?" He turned, fixing one of his ninken with a gaze. After a moment, he nodded and watched it disappear off into the underbrush.

"This is funny to you?" Iruka couldn't keep his voice from building into a yell. "I killed that man."

"At the time that particular man was being murdered, you were doing your level best to keep my intestines from becoming close acquaintances with the ground."

"What?"

"You couldn't have killed him. You were in the mission room, with me, all night."

"I…" That wasn't possible. He'd remember, wouldn't he? It was supposed to be the jutsu that was erasing his memories. "If not me, who else?"

"It's a common jutsu." Kakashi pointed out. "Most shinobi can rarely use it at the level that cause that kind of trauma, but they're out there."

"We have to let T&I know. I'm at the top of their list – the missing times are too coincidental to overlook."

"I just sent Pakkun to them."

"Okay," Iruka relaxed minutely. At least the information was getting to the right people, but the missing time, that was the main issue. "If it's not the jutsu, then why can't I remember what happened?"

"Do you know why the S-rank mission desk was originally separate from the main one?"

After Orochimaru's attack, when the village was incredibly short-handed, the desk assigning S- and some A-rank missions was consolidated with the main mission desk, and they had yet to return to the original scheme. Most of the shinobi working the main mission desk didn't have the needed clearance to know any of the details, but they were perfectly capable of handing out the sealed assignment scrolls.

Iruka was familiar with it but wasn't sure why they'd jumped topics. "I assumed it had to do with access to information."

"For sending people out, it's not crucial. If the Hokage needs to provide any additional instructions or clarification, she can meet with them easily enough. No," Kakashi shook his head. "It's when we come _home_ that we need a place to go."

Something nagged at the back of Iruka's mind, and he had the sensation that if he just thought about it long enough, he could piece it together. "You were injured, badly injured if what you said is true, but you came to the mission desk instead of going to the hospital." He slowly turned the pieces over in his mind, trying to find the most logical explanation. "You had information that was so important that you couldn't risk taking it with you to the grave. Why not tell the medics?"

"It's an integral part of our training to bring any reports to the mission desk – when the S-rank desk was separate, there was no concern for the classified material getting to someone without the proper clearance. With the desks consolidated, we had to make a plan to deal with it. By going to the mission desk, it centralizes the information and reduces the chance of a medic not reporting that someone blabbed. If we wind up dead on the floor of the mission room, everyone will be held and questioned. If we die in the hospital, then there's no way of proving whether or not we knew our condition was critical enough to warrant an immediate divulging of information. By now, more than half of the mission desk personnel have been cleared for access."

"Cleared?" Even in the dim light, Iruka was sure that he saw Kakashi wince. "Others have been cleared, but not me, no, my _memories_ are gone!"

"I was the first one to come back on your watch. In fact, I'm the only one who's ever fallen through the window and bled all over you – or at least it was me along with my team – and you're the only one who's ever been working when I've come back in that state. You definitely have a knack for being in the wrong place at the wrong time."

"What _happened_?" Iruka gritted the words out. He didn't need a reminder of his tendency to inadvertently stick his nose in where it didn't belong; he needed to know how he was missing entire nights of his life.

"I hid your memories."

Iruka wasn't stupid – by his own admission, Kakashi was the common denominator – so he had seen it coming, but that did little to quell the anger boiling up his chest. "_Why_? Everyone else in my boat is cleared, and they're allowed the opportunity to deal with this mess, so why not me? You thought I couldn't handle it because, what, it was just way above my pay grade? I know I'm not..."

"I was trying to keep you safe!" Kakashi cut across him, stepping back into his space and pushing him back in against the tree. "I was worried…. Any of the information I glean from those missions is dangerous. Just knowing it makes you a target, and I could _not_ let that happen. I don't want you to get hurt."

This was one of the many things Naruto had talked about – defense to the point of self-destruction on Kakashi's part. Iruka swallowed hard. That much he could understand. "It just happened to be me. I was unlucky enough to be in the wrong place." Heat pressed suddenly against the side of his calf, and Iruka looked down at the ninken leaning up against him, and then around at the others slinking in closer.

"Maybe at first." Kakashi murmured the correction out, and then stared down at his ninken, clearly refusing to break the long silence that stretched between them.

"Give them back." When Kakashi gaped at him, Iruka plunged on. "Alright, at first you would have done it to protect anyone, but you've continued because you don't want _me_ to get hurt. All this time, you've had to act like you don't actually know me, but how many times have I put you back together? How much time have we spent together to make you care what happens to me?" _What am I missing that you get to live with, and what is this costing you to pretend like it never happened?_ "Give them back," he repeated.

Kakashi jerked his head in a stiff nod and pressed his hand to the node at the crook of Iruka's neck.

He expected it to hurt. Just prodding at the walls keeping him away from his memories had nearly crippled him with a headache, but this was simply a spreading warmth that eased away tension in his mind that he'd been so used to living with that he hadn't noticed until it was gone. The only disconcerting moment was when the walls dissolved entirely, and he had to slam his eyes shut to block out the dual vision of his memory overlain on his current surroundings. The first two seconds of it were enough to make him extremely nauseous.

The memories were less of a movie and more of flashes, certain keystone images and emotions spilling across his mind, and so he was hard-pressed to estimate the sheer amount of time that had been lost – certainly weeks, if he sat down and really added it up. Maybe even months.

The emotions were intense, building on each other and resonating against the inside of his skull. When it finally ended, he snapped his eyes open and found his field of view almost completely obscured by Kakashi.

"Iruka?"

Riding an overwhelming emotional high, he surged forward, caught Kakashi's face between his hands, and pressed a kiss to his lips fueled by all the fearful desperation caught up in his memories. He jerked back almost immediately, steadfastly looking anywhere but at Kakashi. "Oh, I'm sorry. I…. There were about sixteen different memories that all ended with me seriously considering doing that, and I just…. I am so sorry." He could only hope that the moonlight muted out the colors, because he was almost certain he was scarlet.

After all, friendship was a perfectly logical explanation for what Kakashi had done, and Iruka had let his emotions get the better of him.

"Iruka."

He dragged his gaze back around only to find Kakashi smiling directly at him with a tinge of something that almost resembled satisfaction, his mask pooled around his neck. Iruka blinked. "You have _really_ nice teeth." He blamed the reworking of his mental structure being unable to handle such a drastic shift in his reality. Like most people, he didn't really associate Kakashi with any sort of actual face besides his mask.

Kakashi burst out laughing, dropping his head against the rise of Iruka's shoulder before turning to bring his lips level with Iruka's ear. "No apologizing," he murmured and waited for Iruka to turn back towards him. He pressed his lips against Iruka's, soft pecks that deepened quickly when he licked across Iruka's lower lip.

His mouth fell open with a purely involuntary groan. He twisted his wrist out of Kakashi's lax grasp and wrapped his arms around Kakashi's shoulders to keep him close.

The kiss broke apart almost on mutual agreement, and Iruka rested his forehead against Kakashi's, panting into the space between them, "I would say no sex on a first date, but it's not really, is it?"

"You're counting those as dates?" Kakashi was delightfully breathless as well. "That's not fair, how am I going to top…?"

"So help me, if you say the time I had my hands in your intestines, I will find it in me to kill you."

"I was going to say the time that Anko vomited paralyzer on your leg, and I had to drag you into the shower to keep it from going farther."

"Right, that." He remembered it now – he had to lean heavily on Kakashi because his leg was next to useless and had suddenly found himself in a strange bathroom. The paralyzer was already eating through the outside of his pants and crusting to the ragged edges of the hole, and he'd offered token protests when Kakashi had wrapped an arm around his waist to steady him and helped him tug his pants off. The apologies had been brushed off the first time, probably because Kakashi knew that he wouldn't remember, so it felt like he should try again. "I am so sorry you had to…"

"Had to?" Kakashi leered at him. "Because that was such a hardship. Although keeping my hands to myself was _quite_ the effort."

"Thank you for that."

"Gratitude for not feeling you up? But, sensei, you don't seem to be complaining about my hands now." He punctuated the statement by sliding his hands over the rise of Iruka's hipbones and down to squeeze his ass.

His voice caught deep in his throat, tumbling over a moan that was trying to fight its way out as well. "If we had done this and you wiped it from my memory, I would end you."

"If we had done this, I wouldn't have been able to bring myself to erase it."

A knee slid between his, and he really hoped the ninken had vacated the area, because he absolutely did not need an audience balefully watching him grind up against Kakashi's thigh. The long slide sparked enough arousal that he snapped his head back and felt bits of bark break off into his hair. "Kakashi."

The name went unnoticed by its owner, who was currently digging his fingers into Iruka's shoulders and rolling his hips languidly to rub his erection against Iruka's hip.

"Kakashi," he hissed again.

"Mmm."

"We're outside." Iruka wasn't a complete prude, but he drew the line at having his first encounter with Kakashi being a hurried fuck against a tree.

Kakashi's head jerked up, "Right." The surrounding forest dissolved to be replaced with a familiar balcony and door.

Before the sweet old lady from two doors down could make a chance appearance – at least his pants were still done up, but nothing was going to hide his arousal, and Iruka wasn't sure he could handle a normal conversation where all three of them, Kakashi, Iruka, and his neighbor, pretended to not notice the blatantly obvious erections that he and Kakashi were sporting - Iruka scrambled free of Kakashi's arms and started fishing for his keys. "So you brought us all the way here, but then dropped us off on this side of the door?"

"I've never been inside your apartment." Since transporting required an image of the location, Kakashi would not have been able to send them there.

"But you've been outside my apartment?"

Kakashi had replaced his mask at some point during the transition from forest to town, but the wicked grin was still blatantly obvious through the fabric.

Insisting that Kakashi's expression was in _no way_ erotic seemed to do little to convince his dick, and Iruka turned his attention back to the keys, the door, and the desperate need to get inside, especially if Kakashi was going to crowd up against him like that. He fumbled the key into the lock, managed to get it unlocked, and tried to push the door open.

Why on Earth did he leave his spare sandals stacked in front of the door? Iruka wedged his shoulder against the door and stretched his leg around the edge of the door in order to kick them out of the way. The fact that Kakashi was plastered up against his back didn't help his fine motor controls, and it took him three tries to free the door and tumble them inside.

He barely made it two steps before Kakashi's arm caught him around the waist and he arched almost involuntarily into the warm hand that palmed his burgeoning erection. "That's not fair," he gasped over his shoulder. Not only was there barely a sliver of light between Kakashi's body and his – and that inescapable body heat was demolishing any self-control he might have had - but he couldn't really reach _any_ part of Kakashi let alone the parts he was particularly interested in right this moment.

"Not fair, sensei?" Kakashi ran a thumb over the crown of his dick, the motion obscenely muffled by his pants. "You'll just have to retaliate."

He settled for winding his fingers through Kakashi's hair and tugging in a desperate hope that the one thing he could reach would be even remotely erotic. If the startled grunt was anything to go by, it worked. "Don't tempt me."

"Tempt you?" The words were accentuated by a slow slide of his hand up under Iruka's vest and shirt until Kakashi could rub light circles across Iruka's nipple. He must have divested himself of his mask again, because the next words were pressed into the skin of Iruka's neck by warm lips. "I wouldn't dream of it."

That brought a choked, disbelieving laugh up to stick in Iruka's throat. Kakashi'd managed to ruck up his shirt without undoing his vest, and the stiff fabric was stiflingly tight across Iruka's chest. The zipper was warped into an odd curve and less than cooperative, and after a minute of struggling where his and Iruka's hands clashed, Kakashi grabbed the hem and yanked it over Iruka's head. It took most of the undershirt with it.

The cuff caught on his watch; Iruka had to practically shake off. In the end, he managed to extricate himself, tossed the inside-out bundle into the corner, and glared after it. "This is not how I pictured this going."

"It's not exactly how I pictured it, either," Kakashi pulled on his arm until he turned around and raked his eyes down Iruka's torso. "Not that I'm complaining, sensei."

"Pictured?" God, had Kakashi really imagined this? Imagined _him_? The heat in his groin tightened, and an image rose unbidden in the back of his mind of Kakashi in a couple of stolen moments between missions and training peeling his pants down far enough to free his cock, and of the lewd noise of his easy, practiced strokes that barely covered grunts of Iruka's name.

"Pictured," Kakashi grinned slyly. "I'm not virtuous enough to keep my thoughts about you PG." He caught the back of Iruka's head, fingers sliding in under the base of his ponytail and effectively gaining control of Iruka's entire head, and captured his mouth.

"Bed," he groaned out the suggestion between soft kisses. It fell on deaf ears, and Iruka wrapped his hands into a solid hold of the front of Kakashi's vest and dragged him towards the bed and the promise of this whole endeavor migrating to a horizontal position.

After a second's hesitation that was more due to him nipping across Iruka's collarbone than anything else, Kakashi moved to follow him, and Iruka's grasp loosened.

Unfortunately, he overestimated the distance and was paying little attention to his spatial location. The bed caught him at the back of his knees and sent him tumbling onto the mattress. He looked up to apologize only to find himself pinned by a hungry gaze.

"Pants," Kakashi gasped.

Iruka nodded stupidly. Getting out of the vest was cumbersome, getting out of the pants and leg wrappings was next to impossible in any sort of graceful or seductive way. At least Kakashi seemed to recognize that. He managed to get completely out of the wraps around his calves before losing all concentration to the fact that Kakashi was standing at the end of his bed completely naked.

His gaze landed on the erection curving up from between Kakashi's legs, and he could feel Kakashi grinning down at him. "Your thigh wound looks better," he managed.

Bright laughter filled the room, and Kakashi tackled him onto the bed. "I'm sure that's what you were looking at."

"I certainly wasn't looking at anything else." Definitely not at the flushed red head hanging heavy between his legs or the pearl of precome balanced from the very tip of it. Vaguely he remembered that he was supposed to be getting out of his pants, but his hands had other ideas. He wrapped long fingers loosely around Kakashi's penis and dragged his thumb over the tip, rising up to his knees so he could lean over Kakashi and gnawing at his lower lip as he looked for reactions. Kakashi's hips jerked upwards.

"Iruka." Kakashi's voice broke around his name. "It can't possibly be that worrying."

Dropping Kakashi's dick like it had scalded him was probably not the slickest reaction to that comment, but he'd been unable to tear his eyes away from it disappearing within the circle of his fingers. "No! I just," he huffed in a breath, "I want to make sure you enjoy yourself."

"I was planning," Kakashi threaded his fingers through Iruka's hair and pulled him down for a kiss, "On enjoying you."

Distantly, he felt fingers tug the wrappings from his thigh, but he was too busy snickering against Kakashi's lips to pay it much mind.

"Hey, that is an excellent line."

The bed creaking out a protest at the sudden shift of weight was the only warning Iruka got before Kakashi sat up, looped an arm under his knee, and tumbled him back onto the bed. Iruka was pinned for a moment while they sorted out their limbs, but the moment he could move, he hooked his thumbs over his waistband and shucked his pants off.

Ever helpful, Kakashi snagged them and tossed them over his shoulder. Something in the dark corner of the room wobbled and fell to the ground with a muffled whump.

Iruka ignored it, fingers far too busy tripping over the ridges of fine scars that marked Kakashi's upper arms to be concerned with possible destruction of his innocent furniture.

"Lube?"

The nightstand was somewhere over his shoulder, and he pointed blindly. "Top drawer."

"Handy," Kakashi chuckled.

Iruka glared. It was less than impressive from his position flat on his back, trapped with Kakashi kneeling between his legs. He twisted his head up to follow Kakashi's reach, determined not to think about how ridiculous he probably looked. It was, unfortunately, impossible to avoid when he allowed his gaze to follow Kakashi back and realized that, with his thighs hooked over Kakashi's, all focus of that intense stare was aimed at the crease of his legs.

Kakashi reached for him, smoothing slick fingers over the throbbing vein on the underside of his dick, dropping farther down to briefly caress his balls, and then sinking father still.

A light touch traced circles around his entrance, pausing every few swipes to press the calloused pad against it with enough force to just slide it in. He jerked into it and threw a hand over his mouth to stifle the accompanying groan.

His stomach muscles jumped under the first brush of lips that proceeded to make their way up his chest, pausing to part over one nipple to allow Kakashi's tongue out to lave over it, and then continuing on until they were nestled against the soft skin just below his ear. The close body heat stoked the fire burning just below his skin.

A whisper of air blew across Iruka's ear, and Kakashi said quietly, "You know how you were worried about whether I was enjoying this?"

That wasn't exactly a concern anymore. Kakashi's movement had slotted their hips together, and each of Iruka's aborted thrusts down slid him against a solid line of heat. He let his motions become a little more deliberate and was rewarded with a choked grunt and a flash of sodden heat pooling against the skin of his stomach.

"Well, I'm worried too. Let me hear you. Let me know what you like." His finger delved even deeper until it could brush softly over Iruka's prostate.

The sound that escaped around his hand could only be described as a keen, and he lost himself for a minute in the exploratory touches Kakashi was using to work him open. His legs were practically shaking with desire by the time Kakashi finally pulled his fingers free and lined himself up.

His body parted around the blunt tip of Kakashi's penis, the stretch turning slowly into a burn as the throbbing flesh slid farther in. Iruka wrapped his arms around Kakashi's shoulders, arching into the long slide. His head fell back with a growl that forced its way out of his throat, the sound an attempt to ground himself through the heat and fullness, and then the motion halted. He panted, forcing his muscles to relax around the intrusion and feeling the pain ebb. It had been a long time since he'd done this, but he still remembered the feeling when the almost unbearable stretch gave way, and when his body started trembling for another reason altogether, he rolled his hips experimentally.

Kakashi caught his hips, thumbs hooking over the arch of bone and pulling him up into little, tentative thrusts that built slowly into a shallow rhythm.

He hooked his heels around Kakashi's waist, forcing him to drive deeper. "Yes." It was more of a repeated mantra in time to his thrusts as opposed to a single word. The word broke over a spark a pleasure that raced up his spine, and Iruka choked down the next one, so that he could replace it with, "There. That's…"

Kakashi slid an arm under the arch of his lower back and pulled Iruka tight to his chest, flipping them over with a practiced grace that could probably use some examination in the future.

At the moment, however, Iruka was sufficiently happy to ignore it, especially if Kakashi continued to push up at that particular angle. He braced his hands on Kakashi's chest and flicked his thumbs experimentally over hard nubs of Kakashi's nipples. A deep groan of approval met his action, and Iruka found himself flattened to Kakashi's chest by a strong arm around his back. He pressed open-mouthed kisses against the line of Kakashi's jaw, trying to focus on the simple feel of skin under his lips. With the delicious friction against Kakashi's abs and the strong thrusts brushing against his prostate, he wasn't going to last long.

Neither was Kakashi, if the increasingly haphazard rhythm was anything to go by. His hands dropped to Iruka's ass, squeezing and guiding him to meet Kakashi thrust for thrust until the heat in Iruka's stomach was coiled so tightly that he could barely even think through the gathering desire.

He was teetering on the edge, and one of Kakashi's hands released his ass to slide up the length of his spine and grab a handful of hair. A gentle tug, and Iruka followed it back, sitting up far enough that Kakashi was able to get a firm hold on his penis. The briefest stroke across the heated flesh of his dick, and he plummeted over with a shout, spattering Kakashi's stomach.

Kakashi's hips jerked up and stilled.

A flash of heat deep within him was accompanied by throbbing pulses against already sensitive nerves. He bent his head and dragged open-mouthed kisses up the arch of Kakashi's throat, riding it out with slow rolls of his hips.

Where Iruka had been loud despite all efforts to the contrary, Kakashi simply breathed out a soft whisper of Iruka's name.

When his muscles protested even the slightest attempt at finesse, Iruka simply collapsed, letting his forehead rest on the pillow just above Kakashi's shoulder. Over his own labored breathing, he heard a snort and a chuff of breath, and he turned his head in time to see Kakashi pushing locks of hair off of his face. "Sorry," he offered and combed it off of both their faces. His hair tie was lost in the sheets somewhere, and he'd probably find it wrapped around his toes in the morning.

Kakashi pulled out slowly, dragging a groan out of both of them. "I'll gladly suffer through a few strands of hair up my nose if it means that I have something to hold on to."

Iruka shoved hard in the center of Kakashi's chest to pin him to the bed. "Funny." He swung his leg over Kakashi's hip and slowly pulled his feet underneath him.

"You like it."

So help him, he did. The floor was freezing, so Iruka crossed it quickly to retrieve a towel to mop up the worst of the mess. A shower was probably in order, but he wasn't sure either of their legs would support them. He also wasn't sure that either of them would be able to keep their hands to themselves.

Even with the towel, they were both sticky messes – Iruka was fairly certain that Kakashi had gotten lube in his hair as well as everywhere else – and the sheets were soaked with sweat in patches. Getting back in bed should have been completely unattractive, but Iruka couldn't bring himself to think that.

Kakashi helped by extricating an arm from the tangle of blankets, wrapping it around Iruka's waist, and yanking him down to the mattress. He pulled him flush against his chest and threw a leg over his hip, nuzzling into the base of his hair.

It wasn't even remotely unpleasant, and he was just settling into the comfortable embrace when a cough sounded from the side of the bed. Iruka swallowed a startled yell.

"Boss."

Kakashi lifted his head far enough to rest his chin on the curve of Iruka's shoulder. "Pakkun?"

"Just wanted to let you know that they caught the guy. Seems like one of the ANBU went a little sideways after his last mission. He was convinced he was still in enemy territory; he even drew a blade on the shinobi who arrested him and was shouting about how he would never betray his village. Sad really." Pakkun sat on his haunches and scratched idly at his ear. "I also got this back from Interrogations." He tugged a strip of fabric out from under his vest, and it clanked on the floor.

"Thank you." Iruka leaned over the side of the mattress to reach the hitai-ate on the floor at Pakkun's feet and gripped it tight enough that the metal cut into his hand. "Thank you," he reiterated.

Pakkun butted his head gently against Iruka's hand before turning towards the door. He called back over his shoulder, "Have a good night, boss. Glad you finally grew a pair - we were all getting pretty tired of you pining."

Iruka grinned into the pillow at the string of strangled denials that Kakashi was spluttering out, not believing a word of them.

When they had little effect on Iruka and when Kakashi finally realized that Pakkun had left, he fell silent and seemed to be content in burying his nose in the loose pile of Iruka's hair.

Sleep had almost stolen over Iruka when he realized something. "Anko knew?"

"Mmhmm," Kakashi agreed, "She was on the second or third mission you were exposed to, and she was on my side with wanting to protect you." He must of have heard Iruka's muffled outburst of 'that _cheat_.' "Why?"

"I owe her money." He bit the words out.

"For what?"

"She goaded me into betting against her conviction that you and I would eventually get here." He waved his free arm at the general vicinity of the bed.

"You thought we wouldn't?"

"To be fair, I thought you didn't know me as anything other than Naruto's teacher." It took a minute for Iruka to recognize it, but Kakashi was definitely sulking in his direction. "But of all the bets to lose," he conceded.

Kakashi chuckled.

The room was silent save for the soft rustle of blankets from Iruka running his foot slowly over the arch of Kakashi's. "I'm going to remember this when I wake up, right?"

"Sensei," Kakashi drawled, "If you forget this, I will be more than happy to _personally_ jog your memory."

OOOOOOOOO

This was an answer to the prompt "One of them goes missing-nin (don't care which), happy ending please." It's a bit weird, but I hope it's at least somewhat entertaining. Comments/suggestions/critiques more than welcome!


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